Tablet gaming to overtake consoles, says EA executive

Electronic Arts' Chief Financial Officer envisions a tablet gaming scene whose hardware boasts more power and whose apps are more immersive than the console equivalents by 2018.

Electronic Arts' Chief Financial Officer envisions a tablet gaming scene whose hardware boasts more power and whose apps are more immersive than the console equivalents by 2018.

'What gets us the most excited is the power, the computing power, of mobile devices and the speed at which that's growing,' he said at the 2015 Technology, Internet & Media Conference (via GameSpot).

'What that might mean is that a tablet, three or four years from now, has more power than what a typical console has.'

'And that will open up a whole new set of people to console-style games that are much more immersive, much deeper, much more character-driven than simply a static mobile game that you might play for a small burst of time while you're waiting for the bus,' he continued.

With multiple manufacturers competing to come up with attention-grabbing innovations, increased screen sizes, and more powerful internal components, families are also passing older models down to their children who, in turn, prove interested in using them for gaming as well as social and media applications.

For EA, it makes investing in mobile development a relatively sure bet, especially if they can transition the spectacle and polish of a console or PC game to the tablet format.

'We're looking for ways that we can essentially blend those two [console and mobile] models to have a more immersive but movable game experience. Could be in your living room, could be on the bus, or it could be in a friend's house. Much more portable than it is today. And that for us is a huge opportunity,' Jorgensen concluded.